A Noble Task: The Saint Paul Public Library Celebrates 125!

Biloine Whiting Young

Biloine (Billie) Whiting Young began her love affair with libraries at the age of five in the Council Bluffs, Iowa, Public Library. Her family lived on Bluff Street, only a few blocks from the ornate downtown library and she was a regular visitor. Employment in her college library, where she became more acquainted than she sometimes wanted to be with the Dewey Decimal System, helped pay her tuition. Among her books are Cahokia: The Great Native-American Metropolis; River of Conflict, River of Dreams: Three Hundred Years on the Upper Mississippi; A Dream for Gilberto; and Obscure Believers: The Mormon Schism of Alpheus Cutler. She is also a contributor to the book I Wish I’d Been There: Twenty Historians Bring to Life Dramatic Events That Changed America. Young has four grown children and lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.